Friday, August 8, 2008

At the End of the Summer - More Harvest!

Harvesting time! It is time for picking sunflowers and zinnias, too! This cute flower, shown above, was grown by seed. Several bees are flying around the flowers, they are looking for nectar, that make me so happy. So, I need to think twice before I cut flowers for our dinning table or leave them for the bees. Actually, I am one of those who love sharing, so the agreement was to cut quarter of the flowers for home and the rest for these hard workers bees, queens of the honey!
The whiteness of these "Baby's Breath" flowers has a radiant sensation. A bunch of those mixed with some colorful flowers will look like white sparkles! We got a lot of these flowers in our garden which I decided to share with my gardener partners in Norwich, VT.
What a pleasant sensation doing the harvest of the things that you have raised. The 70% of vegetables and 99% of flowers were grew from direct seeds in the soil, fed with organic compost following the rules of our community garden. I am proud of these vegetables (see picture above)... Swiss chard, leeks, basil, tomatoes, hot pepper, lettuce, carrots, you could not imagine how nice and fresh scent I smelt that day.
Last Monday, when Michael was back home from Germany, I made this basket with vegetables in as a welcome gift. Unique from our garden! and beside a bottle of Chilean wine "Santa Rita".
Few days ago, we went to a blueberrie farm, "Super Acres" in Lyme, NH. The system is interesting. it is a kind of self service without owners or other people to assist you around the field. There are only some banners for customer orientation. At the end of the picking the customer weighs the blueberries using a scale, then the money should be put in the mail box. How easy, don't you think? Michael and I picked 25 pounds (11 kg). There was not room in our freezer but I am glad I asked for help in a local church to keep some pounds in its big freezer. Now we have plenty of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries for the entire next winter!

A CURIOUS CASE
When I pulled out this couple of carrots they looked embraced each other. I am guessing, maybe it was because I sow the seeds too close. Well, they made my day a nice one looking this unusual 'embrace'. Now, they are well cooked in a delicious soup.